Writing on 2 February 1851, my grandfather says:—“Not a flake of snow fell on the Forest of Dartmoor in the month of January: not the oldest man living on the Moor recollects the like before.” On 2 March 1862:—“Well, the old people say there never was a February without snow. There has not been any this year, unless it came Friday night before twelve o’clock. A man that was out about sheep says that it did fall before twelve but after eleven: so they still adhere to the old saying. But the others that did not stay up, say that the snow came with March.”
Like many other people of his time, my grandfather was certain that the climate had improved, and he thought he saw the cause. He writes to my father on 22 December 1850:—“I attribute the mildness of the winters and the warmth of the summers to the better state of cultivation of the land draining off the cold stagnant waters that lay about in all directions in my youthful days.” He writes on 23 November 1851:—“The old plan was to have the wheat up in grass at Christmas, as the farmers used to say ‘high enough to cover a crow,’ but they find now from the altered winters that to till in this month and the next is sufficiently early, and better crops.”
My grandfather tried farming here; and I gather from his accounts that he sank about £20 per acre in the first three years. That meant draining the ground, and getting it into good condition; and after that he made it pay, except in the years of the potato famine. He writes to my father on 8 March 1846:—“I should say a diligent clever man, farming his own estate, can make more money now than he could in war time [that is, before 1815] for the system of farming is quite changed, and the land is made to produce nearly double what it did then.”
His knowledge of farming was derived from books; and he did things that were not customary here, sometimes with failure, but often with success. Thus, he writes to my father, 2 April 1854:—“I tilled some barley yesterday.... It was another such March fifteen years ago, when I tilled this same field to barley. I then hired horses and gave it a good working; and the weather was so tempting that I tilled it in March to the amusement of my neighbours. The storms in April made it look blue, which amused them still further. But they all acknowledged they could not produce its equal to harvest.”
He writes on 25 April 1843:—“Folks are waiting to see what spade husbandry will produce. I tell them its not new to me, for I adopted it elsewhere some twelve or fourteen years ago, and was fully compensated for my trouble. But that will not do: they must see themselves. The field is turned up with the spade, all the spine put under, a foot deep; and I have taken out nearly stones enough to build a wall through the field. The cost in turning is 4d. [per rod] with a quart of cider to a shilling, so with cleaning and bringing it fit for the potato the cost is £4 per acre, about double the old system, which would leave all the stones, and the field not half worked.
“Our farmers are loth to believe that any other method but the old one is beneficial. They fancy all manure is in dung and the like. I tell them the quantity of carbon, etc., etc.... But all will not do: they must see to believe. I have tried 1 cwt. of nitrate of soda on an acre of grass, and it is astonishing the effect it has had.”
On 13 January 1851 he writes:—“I am trying an experiment, that is, I am fetching every day some of the refuse from the kilns at the Pottery. It is principally burnt clay. I have often looked at it on passing, and fancied it might turn to use—old Cobbett speaks well of burnt clay. My neighbours say they will try it also.”
In a letter of 11 February 1850 my grandfather suggests a sliding scale for agricultural rents, based on the average price of corn. He did not wish to fix a rent-charge once for all, as with the commutation of the tithe, but merely to provide for variations during the period of a lease. In practice the landlord makes remissions of rent in bad years; but I have not yet heard of a farmer giving his landlord a War-bonus on these good years.
The old copyhold system was better than the leasehold for agricultural land. Here in Wreyland manor a man took a tenement for the term of his life; and that included “his wife’s widowhood therein.” If he wished to give it up, there was always someone ready to take it on. The new tenant paid him for his life interest and his wife’s, and bought the reversion from the lord; and at the next sitting of the court the old tenant surrendered the tenement, and the new tenant was admitted in his stead. If he wished to keep the tenement in his family, he bought the reversion for his son. The tenants were answerable to the manor court, if they allowed their buildings to fall into decay, or let down the gates and hedges against their neighbour’s tenements. But in this manor the court could not take cognizance of bad cultivation, which so often accompanies security of tenure.
These copyhold tenements have developed into freeholds, and the manor has decayed. This is a district of small estates. In districts where estates are large, it is usually the other way. Manorial rights have grown, until at last the manor has unrestricted freehold, and the former copyholds are let as farms.